Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Outfits for Dolly - and a New Body!

Here are just a couple of a series of dolls clothes I made recently. (The second has since been adjusted - as you can see it's too cosy a fit round her chest really.)

I must first say that I'm not really someone who is into making dolls clothes. It certainly isn't a pre-occupation, like making clothes for my little grand-daughters is. We aren't, on the whole, a very girly family, considering we have two daughters and three grand-daughters.But one of my lovely grand-daughters, the middle one, Jane, who's had an operation recently,is currently going through a phase of loving her Dolly. Dolly gets carted around everywhere. Not only that, but Dolly carelessly lost her only outfit early on. It was taken off as part of the experimental phase, just because it would come off. (It probably needed a wash anyway, but somehow it disappeared). So, as Dolly had come naked on holiday with us, I thought it was time to make her a few quick outfits, easy on and off, super quick and easy to make. Otherwise, I feared, if I'd taken too long to make them, the interest in Dolly might have waned by the time they were made. I've written up what I've done in case anyone else would like to make easy doll's clothes based on my very simple patterns. Dolly is a soft-bodied doll of about 15-16" tall, or about 40cm. However most of the patterns are very easily adjusted for different sizes. These are in increasing order of difficulty, but none are really difficult.The first outfit was a super simple bandeau style top with elasticated tie straps, with matching knickers, which actually matched (in fabrics) a new dress I'd made for Jane. You can find how to make this incredibly easy dress for any size doll here. I made the knickers pattern by bending some fabric round Dolly, cutting as I went, and then making a pattern from the fabric (and correcting mistakes as I went). It is a very forgiving pattern and you can find the pattern and tutorial here for both the dress and the matching knickers.

Next there was a red and grey striped dress with matching pants in grey and white stripes (same self-designed pattern as the first outfit). The dress was red, so I added a cheeky red heart to the back of the knickers. There's a pattern for that in my other post too.

Next outfit - same pattern for the knickers, then a simple pattern for the dress. This is quite a short dress, but you could make it longer, or add a frill if you wanted. More information about this outfit here.

And the fourth outfit (which is to be Dolly's Christmas present) is a set of dungarees, or playsuit, the same pattern will make either. This pattern I made by measuring Dolly's waist (28cm - but her bottom is fatter) and her body from her crutch to armpit level and armpit to ankle. You can find the pattern and tutorial here.

Once I had made all of these, I turned my attention to the problem that originally made me start making them - that Dolly isn't very good at looking after her things, and they get lost. So I made her a hold all to carry them about in. You can find out more about that here.

Finally, poor Dolly's body was looking a bit sorry. Since she had been sitting around naked for quite a while, her cloth body was getting quite grubby. The instructions said - do not wash, just sponge the surface. Well, that wouldn't have made a substantial difference appearance wise. (Why don't they make dolls and soft toys more easy to clean or wash effectively?) So - I made her a new body. This time, it's a removable, washable one. If you want to know more about how I made the new body, see this post.